693.001/428
Memorandum by the Counselor of Embassy in Japan (Dooman)
At a luncheon on November 16 at the official residence of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, I congratulated Mr. Arita on his recent appointment and expressed pleasure that an old friend was again occupying a position of honor and responsibility. Mr. Arita said that he was glad to see me again and that he hoped that he could have an opportunity to discuss with me certain matters which he subsequently would take up with the Ambassador. Later during the luncheon, he suggested that I call on him today at two o’clock. The Ambassador having approved the arrangement, I called this afternoon on Mr. Arita at the appointed time at his official residence.
After an exchange of amenities, Mr. Arita asked me at the outset how the Ambassador had reacted to the note which was handed to me last evening at the Foreign Office. I replied that the Ambassador had examined the note with the best of good will but that he was unable to find in it any statement which was substantially responsive to the desires of the American Government. Mr. Arita said, “Well I suppose not.”
Mr. Arita remarked that we were meeting, of course, informally and as old friends, and that he felt that he could express himself freely to me not only because he could use the medium of his own language, but he need not be unduly reserved.
There were two important features which inhered in the present position of Japan which, Mr. Arita thought, it was extremely important that the United States and other interested countries should understand. He wondered whether the principle of the open door and equality of opportunity was being applied by international agreement in any part of the world other than China. I here interjected the remark that it was, but Mr. Arita asked me to allow him an opportunity to express his thoughts uninterruptedly. He admitted that here and there, notably in the Congo Basin, the principle of the open door had been established by international agreement, but China, by reasons of its political status, its territorial extent, and its population, was an exception. He then went into an extended account of the origin and development of the application of the principle of the open door to China. He dwelt on the fact that toward the end of the last century the tendency was becoming more clearly defined for certain of the European powers to establish spheres of influence in China and otherwise to endeavor to set up privileged economic and perhaps political positions in China; and he referred to the fact that Japan at that time was a weak country and was incapable of itself setting [Page 802] up any sphere of influence in China, and that Japan had associated itself with the United States in efforts to have that principle accepted as a rule of conduct in China. He, however, emphasized that the principle of the open door was at first applied only to matters of relatively small importance, such as equality of treatment with regard to transportation, customs duties, and so on. It became apparent after the Washington treaty was concluded that the motive of most of the powers in supporting the principle of the open door was to exploit China largely as they had been exploiting Africa.
He then proceeded to his next point. The United States and the British Empire, he said, were important and large territorial, political, and economic entities. They possessed great wealth, they were rich in all the important primary commodities, and there existed in each a rich domestic market. They were, for all practical purposes, largely self-contained, to say nothing of having the resources of wealth and man power necessary to maintain effective systems of national defense. They could look with almost complete indifference on any attempt on the part of other powers to impose on them economic sanctions. Japan was, however, in an entirely different position. Although Japan had a fairly large population, its area is limited and it possesses few resources. The League of Nations some time ago, invoking Article 16 of the Covenant, had attempted to impose economic sanctions on Italy, which attempt was not successful, and it was his opinion that Japan need no longer be apprehensive of similar action being undertaken by the League against Japan. There were, however, outside of the League of Nations as well as within, several powerful nations whose peoples were predisposed to discuss the possibility of economic sanctions being imposed on Japan. Fortunately, no definite project along those lines has so far been formally brought forward, but the possibility that some serious and concerted effort along these lines might be made was a matter of concern to Japan. Mr. Arita went on to say that there are two ways by which one nation or a group of nations might force another nation to its knees. The first method was obviously the military, by which he meant warships, soldiers, munitions, and so on. The great powers were all supplied with military and naval establishments, and even the smaller nations were equipped with armies and navies consonant with their financial resources. Japan, like other nations, was maintaining military and naval forces adequate for national defense needs. However, there was another method by which pressure could be exerted on Japan, and that was by withholding from her foreign markets and raw materials necessary for her existence. Her army and navy would be useless against pressure applied in that form. It had, therefore, become necessary for Japan to place herself in a position to resist that method of applying pressure, and she was now in process of [Page 803] putting herself in that position by acquiring certain access to necessary raw materials.
The word “bloc” was being frequently used in connection with the economic cooperation between Japan, China, and “Manchukuo”, which is now under contemplation. He himself deplored the use of the word “bloc” as it was one which was capable of causing serious misunderstanding; and if he used the word in his conversation with me he did so only for the purposes of convenience and to describe a certain economic and commercial interrelation which would be evolved between the three countries. What is contemplated is to provide Japan with a market analogous to that which the United States and the British Empire each has internal to itself—a market which is one of the important factors in making that nation safe against pressure applied by other nations in the form of sanctions. He emphasized again that the economic linking together of the three countries would not be in any way comparable to the political linking up of the various elements within the British Empire. He could say definitely that Japan has no intention whatever of assimilating politically any part of China or of “Manchukuo”, and he saw no inconsistency between that statement and the settled policy of economically linking together the three countries in order to provide for their common security. Such an arrangement would not necessarily be exclusive of American and other foreign enterprise and capital. What the Japanese Government has in mind is that the new bloc, while providing Japan a market and a source for raw materials, will offer other countries an opportunity for trade and for investments, just as the various parts of the United States or of the British Empire, while offering a large domestic market, trade with other parts of the world and offer opportunities for investment of foreign capital.
Mr. Arita went on to say that there prevails a widespread feeling that the Japanese Government has now adopted a new policy—one of closing the open door in China. There had, in fact, been no change in policy. His several predecessors had on several occasions given assurances to the American, British, and other representatives in Tokyo that Japan would respect the principle of the open door. As a matter of fact, those assurances were not intended to be unconditional, for the reason that the time had passed when Japan could give an unqualified undertaking to respect the open door in China. He was not implying that his predecessors had given the assurances in bad faith: on the contrary, he felt certain that they were acting in the best of faith, but what they were attempting to do was to reconcile the principle of the open door with Japan’g actual needs and objectives, and that could not be done. As he had previously explained, those objectives are to provide Japan with a market secure against any possible threat of economic sanctions and to acquire safe sources of necessary [Page 804] raw materials; but within those limits Japan was prepared to guarantee equality of opportunity. There would be given full consideration to those enterprises conducted by foreigners other than Japanese which would in no way conflict with or obstruct the carrying out of these primary objectives, and with respect to those enterprises, whether industrial, commercial, or financial, the Japanese Government was fully prepared to give unqualified guarantees. But with regard to other undertakings which overlapped the Japanese economic defense plans, it was no longer possible for Japan to extend any such guarantee. When he came into office, he decided that it would be mischievous as well as useless to attempt to reconcile the principle of the open door, as understood in the United States and elsewhere abroad, with the new situation which Japan was endeavoring to bring about. He therefore declined to repeat those assurances in the note which was yesterday sent to the American Government.
From that point Mr. Arita passed on to the Japanese note. Our note of October 6 had definitely raised the principle of the open door and equality of opportunity, and our Government would no doubt be surprised that the Japanese note did not address itself at length and more definitely to the issues raised by the American Government. The only position which he could have taken in any official note intended for publication would, in the light of the present state of public opinion in Japan, merely have opened up a dispute over principles which he was most anxious to avoid. There were, on the other hand, a number of things which he would like to have said in the note but which he could not. It was for these reasons that he looked forward to an opportunity to communicating privately to the Ambassador certain views which would enable the American Government to understand Japan’s position.
He realized that there were extended historical and even sentimental associations in the United States with regard to that principle, for the establishment of which Mr. Hay deserved great credit; but it was his feeling that if the Japanese Government had entered into a discussion on the question of principle the possibility of making progress towards some final understanding would have to be abandoned. It was his sincere belief that, with the conversation which he would have on Monday with Mr. Grew, which he hoped would be followed by many others, it would be possible for the two Governments to acquaint each with the problems of the other and thus open the road for a solution on some practical basis by arriving at a new definition of the open door which would be mutually acceptable. He said that on the previous occasion when he was Minister for Foreign Affairs, which was about two years ago the relations between the United States and Japan had on the whole been satisfactory, and he had taken occasion in his annual address [Page 805] to the Diet to express appreciation of the attitude of fairness which was being shown by the American people toward Japan. Since the outbreak of the present conflict with China, the Japanese people had consistently been appreciative of the openminded attitude of the American Government, and, although he was sorry to say that anger against and disapproval of Japan were universal in the United States, nevertheless the Japanese people still entertained good will toward the United States; but he was confident that by quiet discussion between the two governments and by refraining from engaging in disputes through exchanges of official notes which are later made public, substantial progress could be made toward an eventual satisfactory solution of the present difficulty.
The foregoing is a summary of the statements which Mr. Arita made without interruption over a period of about one hour. When he concluded, I said that there was very little I could say to him either (Officially or unofficially. There was one thing I could say which it might perhaps be difficult for the Ambassador to say to him at their forthcoming interview, and it was this: The American Government has been showing, as Mr. Arita would readily recognize, extraordinary restraint in the face of the constant and widespread violations of the rights of American citizens in China. It was a striking commentary on that restraint when the American Government waited fifteen months to bring the question of the principle of the open door to a head. During that time, the instances of wilful and sinister attempts to injure American interests were innumerable—I thought they might well amount into the hundreds. Some of these cases had occurred, it is true, as a result of Japanese military operations, but I felt on safe ground in saying that the majority of these cases might well have been avoided if the Japanese military commanders in China and their civilian advisers, among the latter of which there appeared to be a large proportion of unscrupulous persons, had even an elementary sense of respect for the rights of others.
Mr. Arita said that he did not wish to be understood as contradicting my statement that cases of the sort I described had occurred, but he wondered whether we had taken into full account the conditions which attend large scale military operations. I replied that I had taken that fact into full account, and I recited several cases of interference with American rights which had recently occurred in Shanghai, which I pointed out was now several hundred miles away from any important theatre of hostilities.
After some further discussion on the point mentioned in the previous paragraph, Mr. Arita said that he was looking forward very keenly to his conversation with Mr. Grew on Monday, and that he hoped that I would report to Mr. Grew all that he (Mr. Arita) had said to me. He thought it unlikely that he would go over all the same ground [Page 806] again with Mr. Grew but he thought it would be useful to Mr. Grew to know the fundamental position of the Japanese Government.
I expressed to Mr. Arita my thanks for his courtesy in receiving me, and I said that I would go at once to see Mr. Grew and report the terms of the conversation.